Ouroboros
by bananaforscale
Summary: What feeds us destroys us. [Royai]


When the darkness starts to fade he is so happy that it feels like his heart is going to burst.

Everything is a blur of colors and barely defined shapes. He tries to focus but fails, and his gaze remains fixed straight ahead. The hand on his shoulder tightens its grip worriedly. He can't make anything out clearly just yet, but this is more than he thought he would ever get to see again, and even if he'd tried he wouldn't have been able to stop the stupid grin stretching across his face. All at once, everyone in the room releases a collective breath of relief, and the stillness is broken by cheers and exclamations and exultant chatter. His vision is occupied by a wall of blue as his subordinates crowd around him, placing congratulatory pats on his back and shaking his bandaged hand rather too enthusiastically for comfort.

Marcoh's gentle pleas to let the patient rest are lost in the commotion. Hawkeye's steely glare, however, is not, and soon sends the terrified men scrambling out the door for their lives. The doctor offers her a word of thanks before rattling off a list of instructions. He nods occasionally, but at the moment he can't really be bothered to listen. He is too occupied with the surreal sensation of being alive and whole and not even having to worry about the world crumbling around him.

He stretches his hand out experimentally. He can almost tell where his fingers start to peek out from under the bandages. Soon, he thinks, he'll be able to read the newspaper that Falman brings in every morning and the books Breda has borrowed for him. He'll be able walk without stumbling every few steps, and even to aim by himself like he used to. He'll be able to watch her lips move while she speaks until she realizes he hasn't heard a word she's said and frowns disapprovingly—

"You can stop pretending to pay attention now," she sighs, with only halfhearted annoyance. "He left over five minutes ago."

"Oh," he says. "Sorry." He does not sound very sorry at all.

There is no doubt that she notices his lack of sincerity, but she doesn't comment on it. There is something in her that has been trying to claw its way out for hours, and it is far more urgent than his understandably distracted state of mind. He knows this, because he's felt it leaking out of her skin, felt it in the way her fingers had dug into his shoulder. He hears the familiar creak of her bed as she gets up to stand over him. He tries his best to follow her movements, but they are too quick for him, and he only succeeds in making his head hurt. He squeezes his eyelids tightly shut.

"You shouldn't strain them," she scolds. "It will only prolong your recovery time."

It isn't what she had wanted to say, but for now it seems that it's all she can manage. There is a long silence. He listens to the quiet sound of her breathing like he has for the seemingly infinite number of nights he has lain awake here in the darkness. He had been afraid that it would fade and he would be left completely alone, groping blindly for something to tell him that they had really survived, that he wasn't floating around in hell with the memory of that comforting sound only left there to torture him. He had been fairly sure that once he had laid eyes on her he would stop being scared, but the smudge of white and gold he'd managed to see had not been nearly enough to quell his fears. He wonders if anything ever will be, or if he will spend the rest of his life terrified that he will close his eyes and everything will be gone.

It is a thoroughly unpleasant thought, and despite her scolding and the ache in his head, it propels him to blink his eyes open. He is surprised to find that he can almost distinguish her features. She is much closer than he had realized, and her hand hovers hesitantly mere inches from his face. He leans into it carefully, relishing its warmth and weight. She flinches, but after a moment her thumb brushes across his cheek, and through the haze he swears he can see a sort of wonder in her eyes. He does not feel quite so afraid anymore.

It feels, somehow, like waking up from a bad dream, like coming home after a long journey.

It feels like a happy ending.

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"You can't be serious, Brigadier."

Grumman's smile is familiar and careful and fake. His tone matches perfectly; he sounds like he's heard a joke that had been almost funny. Another man, a man who had not been a devoted student of the workings of Grumman's brilliant if somewhat eccentric military mind, who had not managed to beat the strategist once or twice at his own game, might have been considerably deflated. But Roy Mustang is no such a man, and through gritted teeth he produces the most charming smile he can muster.

"I am entirely sincere, Sir," he says, deliberately breezy.

Grumman adjusts his glasses, glancing down at the thick file lying open before him, its pages marked with a series of lines and circles and notes scrawled on the margins.

"You are aware of how much this is going to cost, are you not?" He might have been speaking to a small child.

"Of course."

"And you are aware that I have a country to rebuild and small coffers with which to do so?"

"Absolutely."

Grumman's bushy white eyebrows lift slowly upwards, and his fingers set the file gently shut.

"Then what in heaven's name made you think I would approve of this?"

He had slaved over paperwork to answer this question, spent sleepless nights poring over countless papers and reports, abandoned Hawkeye to fill in the multitude of tedious forms he was supposed to be in charge of. He had revised his proposal a thousand times, gone over every word and figure again and again like they might change the second he looked away. It had stuck behind his eyelids and followed him into his dreams.

So he could tell Grumman how the restoration would turn thousands of displaced, slum-dwelling Ishvalans into tax-paying citizens within a few years. He could tell him how it would put quite a bit of arable land to use, how it would open the desert to exploration for precious minerals and possibly create a channel of trade with Xing. He could say something about the debt they owed to the people they had slaughtered and the people that had ultimately saved all of their hides from certain doom with their Alkahestry. He could even slip in a cheeky comment about how much money they were no longer spending on secret underground labs or doll armies or horrifying, soul-consuming, country-destroying experiments in human transmutation. But Grumman already knows these things. There is something else he wants, and Roy is not quite sure what it is, but he is determined to give it to him by any means necessary.

"I don't know," he answers at last, shrugging. "You tell me."

Grumman laughs, and it's a real laugh that makes him lean back in his chair and sends his shoulders shaking.

"Well done," he says, wiping away a mirthful tear. "It appears you've learned well, Mustang. So be it; I'll indulge this pet project of yours. There are plenty who won't be thrilled about it, but I'll indulge you. And in return..."

Roy tenses under his carefully studied casualness. Grumman is an ally, perhaps even a friend, but he is shrewd, too, and he hasn't climbed as far as he has without some harsh decisions and double-crosses. Roy knows very well what he is capable of.

"In return, I require peace in the East, the eradication of any remaining humunculus co-conspirators, and your absolute loyalty." He pauses to grin. "Do you think you can manage that, Brigadier?"

It seems almost too easy. There must be some sort of catch, something he's missing. He can't figure it out, but he has no intentions of being toyed with. For a moment his facade fails him, and he frowns pensively, his brow furrowing in thought. Grumman sighs at the sight of him, and his eyes look past the young officer and into the long years of his own life.

"Think of it as my conscience catching up with me in my old age," he says wryly. There is a hint of bitterness in his voice that Roy recognizes a little too well. "I'd like to do a bit of good in this world before my heart gives out." He stands and turns to the window, to the bright sun and the bustle of people on the street. Roy understands that he is being dismissed, and offers a salute before making his retreat.

"Take care that you are willing to pay the price, Mustang," Grumman mutters, but the door has already shut. It probably doesn't matter. Despite everything he has been through, the Brigadier is still the hopelessly hopeful man he has always been, and no matter how many times life had taught him that lesson he had never managed to learn it. He would not have understood the warning, and even if he had it wouldn't have stopped him. Grumman could not save him from himself.

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**A/N:** Happy endings are rarely quite so simple as they appear.

Attempting a multichapter despite the fact that I can barely fill one because I am shameless and _no one can stop me, muahaha. _Literary integrity be damned.


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